This Specific Roller Coaster Can Help You Pass Kidney Stones

In confirmation of what feels like an urban legend, researchers have been able to prove that riding on a roller coasters can help you pass a kidney stone.

David Wartinger, a professor emeritus in the Department of Osteopathic Surgical Specialties at Michigan State, led multiple studies based off anecdotal stories he had heard from patients. "Basically, I had patients telling me that after riding a particular roller coaster at Walt Disney World, they were able to pass their kidney stone," Wartinger said in a press release. "I even had one patient say he passed three different stones after riding multiple times."

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Curious about the consistency of their testimony, Wartinger decided to test it out for himself. He stuffed a backpack with a synthetic 3D model of a kidney with three complete kidney stones and sent it on Big Thunder Mountain twenty times.

Forty-five feet tall, Big Thunder Mountain hits 30 MPH in its 3 minute 30 second ride. With a runaway mine cart theme, the coaster has three hills. Wartinger found that while his patients stories could be backed up, they came with specific caveats. First of all, the effectiveness of Big Thunder Mountain depended to a degree on where the backpack was sitting. "In the pilot study," Wartinger said, "sitting in the last car of the roller coaster showed about a 64 percent passage rate, while sitting in the first few cars only had a 16 percent success rate." Both of these rates rose in the secondary, expanded study, including reaching an 100 percent passage rate if the stones were located in the upper chamber of the kidney.

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The second caveat is that the miracle cure only works on Big Thunder Mountain. Neither Space Mountain and Aerosmith's Rock 'n' Roller Coaster proved effective at helping people pass kidney stones. Those rides were too fast, with G-Force speeds that would pin the kidney stone down. "The ideal coaster," Wartinger says, "is rough and quick with some twists and turns, but no upside-down or inverted movements." So, presumably, none of the world's craziest coasters need apply.